The Marvel Tarot — Writer/Designer: David Sexton
Secret Defenders was a kind of Dr. Strange Team-Up book from the mid-’90s, where Doc used a tarot deck to select whichever Marvel heroes most needed a commercial boost, and then sent them on missions that the “real” Defenders, like Hulk and even Nighthawk, were too A-list to bother with. This purports to be Dr. Strange’s tarot deck, with faux research notes on how magic now works in the Marvel Universe, and why certain heroes appear on certain cards (some cards get more than one hero, so that, for example, the “High Priestess” card can be Agatha Harkness, Wanda Maximoff, or Ororo Munroe; if you know who those people are, and are now wondering why they made the list, you are the audience for this book). Part of the “Mystic Arcana” series that Marvel’s been using to try to pull in the cool Goth crowd, and Sexton’s spent enough time on the card designs and accompanying ephemera to make it a perfectly respectable example of its “What if magic really worked” genre.
Shanna the She-Devil: Survival of the Fittest #1 (of 4) — Writers: Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray; Pencils: Khari Evans; Inks: Jimmy Pamiotti
Say what you want about Frank Cho’s version of Shanna, but it was at least a labor of love. This one has too much happening at the beginning (Look! We’re pirates! We raid a ship! Then the sea monster attacks us! Now we’re stranded in the Savage Land!), and then when Shanna shows up she’s somewhere between borderline-offensive and just-plain-offensive cheesecake. This makes me nostalgic for the Shanna who palled around with Daredevil, shacked up with Ka-Zar, had a history and behaved like an actual person.
Thor #2 — Writer: J. Michael Staczynski; Penciler: Olivier Coipel; Inker: Mark Morales
Thor sets up housekeeping. OK, I suppose, but slow-moving; Lee and Kirby would have covered the first two issues of this series in five pages, blah blah blah. For a guy who used to talk like Shakespeare, Thor sure doesn’t say much, either; he’s all grim and godly as he sets out to find/recreate his fellow-Asgardians. His head/face are beefy and blocky, like Bart Sears designed them, and the helmet, frankly, sometimes makes him look comical. I’ll give this book the benefit of the doubt for a while, and a few more chances, but so far it doth not bode well.
Spider-Man/Red Sonya #1 — Writer: Michael Avon Oeming; Penciler: Mel Rubi
This isn’t a reprint of the Claremont/Byrne Marvel Team-Up #79, or even a retelling — it acknowledges the earlier story — but it has the exact same plot. Well, OK, 90% of the same plot, but it’s enough for it to win this week’s “Why did they do that?” award. Did we really need to see Mary Jane possessed by Sonya again, or Kulan Gath take over New York City and make it all Hyperborian-looking for the third time? Readers would be much better served by looking up that original MTU issue, or the sequel in Uncanny X-Men #190 and 191, instead.
Night of the Living Dead: Hunger — Story: John Russo; “Sequential Adaptation”: Mike Wolfer; Artwork: Ryan Waterhouse
I’ve complained about these Avatar books before, but look: you only get 12 pages of story for your $3, and it’s such generic zombie crap, so lacking in any kind of competence or wit or creative value, that only a total zombie completist would want it. Just walk away.
Detective #835 — Writer: John Rozum; Artist: Tom Mandrake
I wanted to like this a lot more than I actually did; Mandrake knows from drawing the Spectre, and this resembles one of those Fleisher/Aparo ’70s Spectre stories, with its gruesome-but-cleanly-drawn deaths. The problem is that the Scarecrow ain’t the Spectre, and a lot of this makes no sense (an Arkham-confined Jonathan Crane goes from zero to Hannibal Lector in 60 seconds, suddenly able to make hardened Arkham inmates kill themselves? You think? Plus, I’m still trying to figure out the biology of the whole strangled-by-one’s-own-intestines thing). The art’s certainly nice, but this reads like the fill-in story that it is.
Action #853 — Writer: Kurt Busiek; Penciller: Brad Walker; Inker: Livesay
A Countdown crossover, as we mostly focus on super-Jimmy Olsen (or, um, “Mr. Action,” I guess), as he tries to take down the Kryptonite Man, and doesn’t do very well — although, judging by the cliffhanger ending, neither does Superman. Points to Busiek for at least trying to deal with one of the things that bugged me about the first Countdown (how Olsen knew who Jason Todd was), although he deals with it mostly by acknowledging that Olsen shouldn’t know about it. Busiek’s writing is good as always, but I’m just not feeling the Jimmy Olsen love enough to want to keep this book.
She-Hulk #20 — Writers: Dan Slott and Ty Telpleton; Penciler: Rick Burchett; Inker: Cliff Rathburn
I’ve been able to appreciate Slott’s lighthearted, continuity-steeped run on this title, although somehow it’s never quite clicked enough to justify actually buying it. Here, he’s clearing the decks, since he’s moving on to — well, not “greener” pastures, but more Spidery ones, anyway. This seems rushed, as he clicks through all the plotlines he would have gotten to, eventually, and then puts all the toys back in the box for new writer Peter David. If you’ve been a fan throughout his run, you’ll definitely want this issue, too.
Outsiders: Five of a Kind: Nightwing and Captain Boomerang Jr. #1 — Writers: Nunzio Defilippis and Christina Weir; Artist: Freddie Williams II
DC marketing screwups, part 453: not noting on the cover (or, really, anywhere except in the indicia) that this is the new Batman and the Outsiders launch, as apparently there’ll be five issues like this, each with two or three current or potential members of the team, and by the end we’ll see what the new lineup is. Here, Nightwing and CB Jr. have to investigate mysterious problems on S.T.A.R lab’s space station, and in the process bits of each’s character is revealed. OK, but the menace-in-space bit is a familiar plot, and I don’t, to be honest, care enough about the Outsiders to spend five issues watching them get the team together. Wake me up when the new roster is set, and then we’ll see….
Phil Mateer
